Cirrus@Austlit

'Clearly, the risk taken by the author of excessive impicitness is the risk of being misunderstood. Susan Barrett argues that this has ... been the case for Barbara Baynton ... whose Bush Stories were until recently read as "true" accounts of life in the bush ' (Linda Collinge, Iintroduction to the Journal of the Short Story in English, 40 (2003) p.13). Barret re-examines the works in the light of feminist criticism, concluding that 'given the circumstances in which she was trying to publish, direct criticism was never an option for Baynton. What is essential in decoding Baynton's work is to accept that it is not about women but about the absence of women who are shown to be victims both of men in the bush and of language.' (p.95)